I have known Edward Spalton for many years, both as a constituent and now as Hon Sec of the Campaign for an Independent Britain: a man of sound views, I have just recently discovered that he has a Scottish wife – and strong views about the Campaign for Scottish Independence. He recently wrote to the papers on the subject, and I thought his letter worth sharing:

“In debate, Mr. Salmond appears to be just as ignorant as most Westminster politicians on matters concerning the European Union.

“Any country applying to join the EU has to satisfy the “Copenhagen Criteria” which include the obligation of changing to the euro currency. Full stop. Anything else is fanciful blether.Of course, other countries have adopted foreign currencies as their own legal tender but they are not the sort you would want to emulate.

“Zimbabwe uses the US dollar.At various times Mr. Salmond has urged wildly divergent cunning plans. He once advocated joining the euro so that Scotland could become a “tiger economy” like Ireland. That fell a little flat, didn’t it?Then he said that Scotland should become a financial power house – like Iceland, only bigger. And we all know what happened to that!As my Scottish wife says “His head’s full of wee toys and they’re all broken”.

“More seriously, as a small EU country in the eurozone, Scotland could easily suffer the fate of Slovakia (a country of similar population). Slovakia had adopted the euro and kept to all the rules – one of which was that no country could be made liable for the debts of another.Suddenly that rule was changed and Slovakia was told it had to help bail out much richer countries, which had broken every rule in the book. The Slovak government rebelled for all of three days before being dragooned into line.

“Martin Schulz, President of the EU parliament, hectored and lectured Slovakian ministers. “How many people do you represent?” he demanded. “I am President of the European parliament and represent all the people of Europe”.

16 Responses to “A Head full of Wee Toys”

Trouble is Roger we on this side of the border can see it all , the Say No campaign does not seem to have the fire in the belly to topple the Wests new medicine man with his mantra of me Big Chief Salmond have cure for all our ills.. how can their economy be independent if he stays with sterling governed by the Bank of ENGLAND , we will determine their interest rates etc etc they don’t even own their banks Britain does.

Having asked the question over the last year about state pensions for Scottish expats, would the frozen ones remain frozen, I have had complete silence on the subject. It would seem this is not a question that even the Scots have been asking!

Maureen, it is the blatant discriminatory policy that affects less than half of British expats, mainly in Commonwealth countries, who on retiring abroad find there state pension is frozen at the amount first paid in the new country. Never mind the fact that they have paid into the NI scheme for a lifetime like everyone else. So just because of location the frozen 4% do not get annual cost of living increases. It is a scandal and an injustice . Canada is frozen USA is not. Australia frozen Israel is not and so it goes on, totally illogical and Webb who said this was an unfair and discriminatory policy before the last election has not only done a U turn but has included this outrage in the new pension bill. What a hypocrite this man is. Here is some info. http://pensionjustice.org/ Thanks for your interest.

Jane Davies comment leaves me wondering Maureen,how many ex-pat pensioners would be affected out of the 560,000 pensioners with no indexation for their pension at the moment.
I have no idea but certainly in Canada there must be many as the Highland Games are celebrated in every province, even the Yukon.
As for the other parts of the world, can you see a Scotsman not doing so in Thailand or Singapore. ?
With the estimated cost of GBP 3,700 per pensioner to uprate the pension and a total of about GBP 600 million for all frozen pensioners worldwide, the cost for uprating the Scotsmen and women will not be insignificant.
This is why the subject must be considered and not just waved away as being of no consequence plus the fact that future pensioners should know where they stand in this respect.
Does ‘yes’ mean uprating or not ?
Every penny has to be found from somewhere if ‘yes’ means uprating for all.

George Morley, I agree with almost all that you say and I don’t think either the Scottish Government or indeed the “Yes” campaign have even thought about the implications – let alone offered any plans…especially if the vote is yes but EU membership is not automatic..
The one thing I don’t agree with you on is the cost of up rating per pensioner. If there are some 560,000 currently unindexed and the cost of upratıng is in the order of GBP 600 million I would suggest the average cost of index linking per pensioner is around GBP1,200 per annum.
I think the figure of GBP3,700 per pensioner per annum relates to the savings to the UK economy that are made by UK pensioners living abroad and not receiving NHS, the bus pass, and the other pensioner supplements and concessions; clearly there would still be savings even with universal up-rating.
Perhaps the Scots should not only be concerned about those already retired abroad but appreciate that under the Pension Bill enacted earlier this year this discrimination is incorporated in Clause 20 and, therefore, affects everybody who might be contemplating living abroad in theır retirement.

Thankyou Andy Robertson-Fox for that correction in regard to the cost. You are right and clause 20 is in total contravention of the Charter of the Commonwealth and should never have been included in the final draft of the Pensions Bill following the travesty of a debate in the scrutiny phase.

As we witnessed last night, in no way must anybody talk about risk. That would be the common sense approach to most anything that has the merest whiff of catastrophic failure. No worry the tax payers sit wallet wide open in the wings (England I suspect).

My Scots wife tells me he is called wee eck in Scotland. I asked her today if she would like to be an expat again, having been an expat some years back? I got the two fingers basically and like too many things prior to this vote its not explained…. is it?

I think Scotland does need assistance, but not this independence way. Same as Greece, Portugal and Spain and those not necessarily the EU way which is another level of needless government. All of it is about money, but not spending the money you have not got…repeatedly.Windmills and low power vacuums ain’t it either.

I reckon it will be NO, and the SNP following are going to be mighty angry. I have known a few of them for a long time. Just wait for the Bells to come out!

One final remark. The idea of a televised election debate ought to be re-examined. I watched the whole bar room brawl. I watched the Chairman joining in the shouting match. I listened as the bigoted audience were allowed to create useless diversions.
Is this what the Scots are really like? I do hope not.
And Mr Clegg is really telegenic. That is how he managed to skew the election in his favour: he went from zero to hero in three productions.
A real debate, on the other hand, with real people speaking sense and being listened to carefully would be a different matter. Even then, the hairstyle, the voice, the sexiness of the speakers would be so important. I cannot see, for instance, Michael Gove, IDS or Nigel Farage being chosen over Nick Clegg or Caroline Flint.

I still remember Salmond keeping quiet when Farage was pretty much threatened in Edinburgh followed up by a rather foolish radio presenter. That’s apart from the English idiots who joined in. Its a worry for the ordinary people of Scotland…probably those undecided or rather scared.

I think it’s time the Scots left the Union. Even if they vote no, they will be handed plates of goodies by CMD and in 5 years they will vote again. The English taxpayer will always be lender of last resort. Let them plough their own furrow.

Guy Fawkes is indicating a good bet on Douglas Carswell. Just wondering about any more drop offs. Things have been too quiet (unreported) about Tory councillors and what’s happening in the associations. Yeo down, more wind turbines to go?